You know you’re in trouble when you need Henry Kissinger to vouch for you.

But there was the one formerly known as “The One” sitting at a table with a bunch of old, white, Republican dudes, choosing the most abstruse issue on the agenda for his moment to Man Up.

With Republicans treating the president like a dirt sandwich and Democrats begging the president to throw a knuckle sandwich, Obama drew his line in the sand on telemetry.

The Start arms treaty used to be a chance for American presidents to stare down the Russians. Now it’s a chance for a Democratic president, albeit belatedly, to stare down the Republicans.

The administration dilly-dallied for months on New Start, which should have been a no-brainer, even after it was clear that Senator Jon Kyl was a problem and needed to be cultivated, and even after it was clear that Republicans were on track to grab some power back.

But faced with the treaty’s unraveling, with possible deleterious consequences for sanctions on Iran and supply lines for our troops in Afghanistan, Obama had no choice. Even if the treaty doesn’t much affect our strategic security, it affects the relationship with Russia and our standing in the world. And resetting the relationship with Russia, with his buddy Dmitri, is the president’s only significant foreign policy accomplishment.

Besides, a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize on layaway doesn’t want to be responsible for any loose Russian nukes ending up in the crazy ’Stans.

As Richard Wolffe notes in his new book, “Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House,” the president drove Rahm Emanuel crazy by spending his first months in office toiling on the details of Start when the chief of staff was trying to get him to focus on the economy and his domestic agenda.

Nuclear arms control, Wolffe writes, was one of Obama’s first interests as a student at Columbia University. And his head is still in those wonky clouds.

“Most people don’t really give a pig’s patootie about a nuclear arms deal with Russia,” James Carville told reporters last week. But he agreed that the president needed to get out of his spineless spiral, even repeating his put-down from the Democratic primaries, that if Hillary gave Barry one of her spheres of testicular fortitude, “they’d both have two.”

Just as Bill Clinton once snatched welfare reform from the Republicans, now President Obama is playing W.’s national security card against the Republicans.

It would have been nice if Obama had made his tough stand earlier, on tax cuts or “don’t ask, don’t tell.” And since he doesn’t have the votes yet, he risks losing and taking a second shellacking. Popeye pulling out the spinach too late.

Still, if the president calls the Republicans’ bluff and makes them vote against ratification, they look petty. Is it worth risking the obliteration of the world to obliterate Obama’s second term?

In The Washington Post recently, Robert Kagan advised his fellow conservatives to show maturity and readiness to govern: “Blocking the treaty will produce three unfortunate results: It will strengthen Vladimir Putin, let the Obama administration off the hook when Russia misbehaves and set up Republicans as the fall guy if and when U.S.-Russian relations go south.”

Senator Richard Lugar, the only Republican so far willing to vote with the president, was blunt in warning Kyl of the danger of playing politics with nukes. His message underscored the hypocrisy of Republicans who shriek at the Iranians building a nuclear bomb while shrugging at the thousands of nukes that the Russians have floating around.

“One of those warheads — and there were 13,300 originally — one of them could demolish my city of Indianapolis,” Lugar told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.

The president and his advisers have been moping since the election. Richard Wolffe says the fourth-quarter player in the Oval, who has struggled to figure out whether he’s an insider or an outsider, aims to position himself as a statesman. He wants to come across as the grown-up in the room, disciplining puerile Republicans who would “mess with nuclear weapons and screw up alliances.”

The Republicans may help Obama if they act so vindictive, entitled and puffed up that they turn off the voters who just anointed them.

Sarah Palin’s fans have hijacked what is supposed to be a fun talent contest, “Dancing With the Stars,” and turned it into an annoying straw vote for the Palin family. And on Friday, as Americans were rebelling against groping airport pat-downs, the soon-to-be speaker of the House, who was supposed to travel like real Americans, put himself above the madding crowd.

The Times’s Jeff Zeleny was on the scene and reported that John Boehner did not wait in line or go through security: he “was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.”

So much for Reagan’s trust but verify. Now we’ve got distrust and vilify.

Why anyone in the DNC would ever trust the New USSR for anything speaks volumes for their insincere "smarts".

The Snooper Report. Join us as we Take Our Country Back.Sic vis pacem para bellumFight Accordingly

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